Monster Crown News

Happy Weekend Tamers!

This week's update brings some really cool stuff to the game, Randomizers, Mods, and a brand new monster!

[h2]Brand new monster - King's Primigon[/h2]



Have you noticed the King and Merryl have these cool horned Primigon? They're a different color too! The King needed a hardier breed to escort his carriage through the dangerous Scarred and Desperado province and so had this new type of Primigon created that is stronger, faster and tougher. Tamers on Discord have even dubbed it "Primigon 2", and to be honest, stat wise it is better in every way!



Get your hands on a King's Primigon using the code KINGPRIM in the barn. This was a much requested monster for fans, much to my surprise, and while I was tempted to modify Primigon's sprite to add horns I didn't think that was gonna cut it for a sharp-eyed tamer such as yourself, so not only does King's Primigon have a totally new sprite and coloring for your breeding projects, but each of its crossbreeds puts a brand new spin on Primigon's equivalents, totally new polished sprites that build on those designs you already know in a big way!

Oh, I also gave it a brand new move, Cruel Push after many people asked for more moves to punish status conditions, Cruel Push does 3x damage to dizzy foes!

[h2]Randomizer Options[/h2]

You'll now find another menu category - Fun - that contains options for modding and randomization:



Random Starter: This option causes the starter you select to be randomized immediately after you select it from all base monsters, giving you a true surprise to start the game with.

Randomize Types: All monsters will receive a new random typing

Randomize Colors: All monsters will receive a new random palette

Randomizer: All wild monsters, bosses, and tamer monsters will be shuffled randomly, providing new monster options everywhere you look!

Check out my starter and what I found just outside the farm!

All of these random options rely on an RNG "Seed", some of you may be familiar with that from other games, but basically if the randomizer creates orange Rodask in Dew Cave, next time you load your file it'll keep making orange Rodasks in Dew Cave, however, you can "re-roll" the seed by turning Randomizer Off then back On. These values are saved to your file so finding a value you like for each of your different files is fine.

It's in the spirit of randomizers to not mess with this value and just play with your initial seed, but I ain't your mom :D, go nuts! all the tools are here for you to use however is fun for you.

[h2]Mods[/h2]

This update also brings our first modding tool, inject a monster sprite! Start off by opening the Fun menu and turning on Mods. Next up grab the template here:


https://i.imgur.com/QgbtgXZ.png

Open that image in your image editor of choice (I enjoy Paint .net for color replacement/transparency after I design them in MSPaint) and replace it with your new custom monster. Monsters in Monster Crown only have two colors, so where you want the lighter color to go replace with Red, and where you want the darker use this blue. It's important that you sample the colors in this image and don't use some other red or blue.

Once you're happy with the sprite, you can visit the script I created here:

http://bulletcpu.com/crowns/PNGto5bit.html

And upload the image. It'll convert it into a code. you'll notice this code is mostly 0s but there are numbers 1-4 in there as well. If you get a code with only 0s just upload it again with the browse button and it'll make the code properly. Copy this code!

Back on your party screen, hover over the monster with the sprite you'd like to replace and hit F11! It'll inject the monster sprite into the game, that's it! All done! And best of all? If your friend also has mods turned on you can even trade and battle, the game will communicate the sprite data without the need for a mutual mod file or anything, between you and other modders these can be used like any other monster.

Here's a Chuk with a custom sprite I created, I called it Yuto! I guess it's our first quasi-canon monster.


Want to get yourself one? Well there's a playground rumor that if you trade and enter a tamer id of 999999 (six nines) you'll trade with a phantom tamer and receive your very own Yuto-chuk.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you breed these monsters, they produce Tardigen. If this feature is well loved maybe we'll add the ability to insert a whole crossbreed family in the future.

Due to the new monster mods, our pedigree gallery (which has had so many awesome entries and is definitely worth checking out) will be changed from free-for-all to needing approval when entries are submitted. There's no high bar for this, I just want to be sure no copyrighted material is submitted for other players to download. I'll be approving all new entries every day or two.

http://crownsgame.me/?q=pedigree-gallery

[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]

1.0.39
======
+Additional Menu Tweaks
+Saliskipper new designs + palette
+Number of encounters allowed to be generated at a time increased by 3
+Some additional attack animations have been added
+Randomizer Options now available
+Monster modding now available
+King's Primigon now available
+New attack added to the game, Cruel Push
+Brand new Saliskipper sprites


Have a great rest of your weekend Tamers!

Hey guys,

After the recent total UI overhaul a few things had to be cleaned up/tweaked, thank you so much to all of you that helped me identify these. Switch users are also now able to use the new UI as well.

Embryo sprites that were missing are now back. Additionally the box system had a few tweaks for greater reliability, and now when you exit it in the fusion or breeding menu you'll be back at fusion/breeding, not booted back to the room.



The big functional change this update is I've gone through and reviewed all the flags and triggers of every chief and tweaked a few things, I've also tested this thoroughly and now all chiefs can be completed in whatever order you wish, they all give their prize monsters and all increase your certification level. If there's just one or two chiefs you haven't beaten you can try to take them on now, however, if you had bigger chief issues in the past you can do the following to reset all your chief flags and let you take them all on:

1. Open the settings menu
2. Press all four directional buttons (Up, Left, Right, Down)
3. This will set all chiefs to undefeated

I'm also considering returning to each Chief and giving them a super buffed up post-game team, is that something you'd have fun taking on?

For those of you that haven't yet pinned down the Enigma Beast out on the ocean, one of the monsters it can give you in an egg can now be obtained at the Wetland Province tamer camp. You'll meet a troubled young boy there that has a story to tell



Also, here are some more sprite touchups:



[h2]What's next?[/h2]
While work on more content is going well, it will take some time because I want it to be a ton of fun, a lot of great content and I want it to be smooth and stable. I will make sure of that before I launch anything on that front.

That being said one type of content that can always be added without introducing bugs is new monsters, and to a similar degree new moves.

But even sooner than that we'll be launching our first of the modding tools in the next two weeks, the ability to mod in custom monsters you've drawn yourself! And if the other player has modding turned on they'll be able to see your custom monsters in battle too and even trade them. These modding tools will be PC only.


Here are the full patch notes, have a great week!


1.0.37
======
+Jack now directs you to the proper town for Leona
+Can no longer use transfomative items on embryos (caused issues)
+Issue preventing embryo sprites from appearing fixed
+Camera issues in two houses in Hewston fixed
+Tamer card graphic positioning fixed
+Box improvements, including backing out of it just bringing you back to the breeding/fusion menu
+Chief flag overhaul

Hello tamers!,

One often-requested feature was the ability to set Breeding and Fusion monsters from the box system. This offers better ease-of-use, a simpler UI experience, and combined with the new box interface it makes your breeding goals easier than ever. Also, the box in general has been sped up a little.



This is just a very small tweak but I found a way to adjust screen colors to be a little more retro-authentic and vibrant, it can be hard to notice if you didn't already play in the past day or so (or maybe it is and you just have better color perception than me!) But it's a nice little improvement.

Slumbear has been added to the Woods where you rescued Dad, and Hymeraden is now tameable! If you missed him first go-around, you can now find him in the inner sanctum as well, but his spawn is fairly rare. This monster was a fan design by Zai Wolfgang, he's one of our oldest super fans and I'm so glad he got to contribute to the game... I heard a rumor there's another similar contest on the horizon ;)



I also have begun adjusting some of the weaker sprites in the game. I compiled a full list of sprites I'll be touching up, 28 in total (so don't worry about any major revamps to your favorites) and the first two I finished up this morning. One is just some tweaks to look a bit more complete and interesting, the other is a fairly significant redesign because the old one looked very amateur to me.



There is a lot of WILD stuff in the works, and a lot more cool things in the way that are bigger in scope than these patches :)

1.0.35
======
+Dragon Cliff Cave to Shagrun fixed
+Colors slightly adjusted to be a bit more retro authentic
+micro gap occasionally seen in the world/tiles fixed
+Brilliants causing both monsters to appear as brilliant in NPC trades fixed
+Brute Ambigu, Unstable Pursuit sprite redesign/touchups
+Can now set breeding/fusion monsters from the farm box
+Slumbear added to Wayward Woods
+Hymeraden now tameable and added to the inner sanctum for anyone that missed it
+Jack now directs you to the proper town for Leona
+Rodask loading screen no longer hitches on loading steps

Hello Tamers,

This update is a substantial one! I've been listening to all the feedback and reviews and studying the look of the game a lot myself and I sat down and got to work last Friday night and have barely stopped since, but it's been super worth it!

Screen Resolution



Probably the first thing you'll notice is the resolution change in game, the width and height of the camera has been increased by a little over two tiles each. While this can seem like a small change it actually makes quite a difference, especially on larger displays. You can see more of the game world and the detail level on large displays is just so much of a better fit. It also means you see more of the pixel art at the "distance" it should be.

UI Overhaul



All over the game you'll notice the new increase in resolution has not gone to waste! But before we get into that, the main menu usability has been worked on quite significantly. When you open the main overworld menu you'll notice it's now a bar over on the left, and it automatically opens the party screen. You'll be able to scroll up and down to select menu options faster, enter and leave the submenus and responsiveness has been increased here.

Shop and Inventory Screens



The Shop and Inventory screens have been revamped to show more items in a more modern looking interface. You'll be able to see all items available in the shop in an instant and my hope is that this will bring more attention to Ultra Rare Berries, a quick super-level-up method that many aren't aware of!

Farm Box



The Farm Box screen has been changed to show your party at all times, as well as showing all stat and move info of your monster as you scroll over them, reducing the need to enter a subscreen to check them out in full detail. This makes it easier to use the box and there's even some more screen real-estate on bottom to spare. This will be used for some sorting or quick use features in the future, to make the box system even easier to use and find your favorite monsters.

Finding Items



From now on when you get items rather than an intrusive box displaying on screen that slows you down, an item queue will appear seamlessly to the left of the screen showing the items you recently found. It's faster, seamless, and still easy to recognize what you just received!


Stat Buff/Debuff Feed



You'll notice that now when a monster receives a buff of debuff it scolls across the bottom of the screen. It's there longer, so you can read it without missing it with the old side-of-monster display, and it doesn't interrupt your flow. In time I imagine we'll get rid of the old display entirely.


These changes, combined with the rebalancing and the gradual day-night cycle makes for a much better gameplay experience than was available on release day. I will continue this work and improvements and soon, I'll be working on additional content as well.

Hey Tamers, happy Wednesday.

after the last update a number of people expressed displeasure at the new stat and orb-use caps. I saw all sorts of messages about this, and about how they felt, even though it won't matter and no one is listening.

I don't want to hear that! If you have an opinion, send it to me, post it here, whatever you want, of COURSE I want to hear your thoughts and positions and wherever possible I will add more options for players to enjoy Monster Crown how THEY choose to.

Not every piece of feedback can be actioned, I'm one dude, and sometimes suggestions involve a lot more work than they might seem to at first thought - but none of that changes the fact that this community is for you, and I am always interested in hearing how you feel or what suggestions you have.

On another topic, Syleendra will no longer stalk you to the ends of the earth, it was only meant to do this if you held a lit lamp! I saw it stalking a few new players - sorry about that!

Monsters Thallox and Mathen (right) are now available in the wild. A glitch had prevented both from appearing but they're now fully available. I explain where you can find Thallox below, but I'll leave Mathen a mystery for now, feel free to read its lore for a hint!



One last thing, after I saw someone suggest it I changed the day-night cycle to a more gradual one. I'll make it even smoother in the future once I'm certain there's no performance impact - there's a colorset for morning, day, evening and night, and this new solution blends them as you move through the day, it's a little more resource intensive but shouldn't be a big deal, just want to give it a little time.

This version will be heading to Nintendo Switch next!

1.0.3
======
+Skill uncap option added (Check your settings)
+No longer enter a weird state when Raptor-flying while surfing
+Syleendra bug fixed
+Can no longer use Monster Moniker early, added UI indicator for it and it's now easy to remove using the wardrobe
+Thallox added to Greed's castle
+Mathen now available, the way she was always meant to be!
+More gradual day/night cycle, might become even more gradual and slow if no one has any performance issues with it
+Party scrolling now loops around (good suggestion I received on Reddit!)

Have a great night tamers!